***
The man swung, his backhand connecting with her arm and blowing right through it. Maddy tensed, prepared for the blow she knew was coming.
“What the—?”
Nothing landed.
She opened her eyes—
To find that the Agent’s hand had been stopped cold by her arm. Maddy looked at it in amazement. She looked at him in amazement. He looked at her in amazement.
She punched him in the gut with her free arm, as hard as she could.
The man crumpled to the ground with a wail of agony. Maddy hadn’t been ready for him to release her, however, and she fell to the ground next to him.
What the hell just happened?
Even as the thought echoed through her mind, Maddy touched the pavement she was kneeling on. Her fingertips could sense the bounces and ridges in the asphalt. In the distance, the once-faint pounding of the ocean was suddenly right next to her. The night lit up, all the faint sources of light suddenly blossoming into vibrant colors that showed her everything surrounding her.
Then the pain of her earlier fall hit her.
Maddy screamed as the agony shot through her body, once again amplified by all of her new senses. As a human, she had had years to become accustomed to her sensory receptors, to ignore minor things. Now she was being assaulted anew by senses suddenly ten times more acute than anything she had known before.
Her scream was deafening and she clapped her hands over her ears to try and dull the sound. All that served to do was reignite the cuts on her hand as she slapped them against the sides of her skull. She pulled her knees in and began to rock back and forth in a ball, fighting to get everything under control. Through it all, she latched onto one thought.
The serum worked!
A booted foot caught her in the ribs, and she grunted with the pain. It was suddenly lessened as she became accustomed to her new senses, bringing them under her control and not allowing them to run free. Obviously the Agent had recovered from her first hit.
“Punch me, will you?” the Agent said, kicking her again.
Maddy, still on her hands and knees, opened her eyes at the words. She glanced at her hands, wondering if she could punch without dealing with a new wave of pain.
But to her surprise, the scrapes were already almost healed.
Right. Healing powers.
She looked up at the man sharply, a smile spreading across her face, pulling her lips back into a predatory snarl.
The man pulled his foot back and swung it at her head in response.
Maddy’s hand shot out, and she stopped his foot cold, feeling the reverberation as the force of his blow was redirected back up his leg and into her arm. She barely noticed it, but the Agent winced.
“You’re not an Extremis,” she said slowly. “You’re just human.”
The man sneered, despite his predicament. “No, we’re human.”
Three more shapes emerged around her. His reinforcements must have finally arrived.
“No matter,” Maddy said with a happy shrug.
Then she bent forward, grabbing the man by the shin with both of her newly enhanced hands.
“What are you doing?” he asked nervously.
“Fitting in,” she snarled, picking him up and swinging him around like a massive club.
The Agent screamed as she bodily slammed him into two of his companions. Something crunched as they went tumbling away in a heap. There were no screams, which was rather foreboding. Maddy didn’t have time to worry about that though, because the other two Agents spread out to either side of her, both brandishing knives. Even with her enhanced sight, the dim light made it hard to see, but she was positive the blades were coated with the same substance that had been on Connor.
She needed to avoid being hit.
In the background, lights came on in the shipyard at last. They illuminated a ship at the far end, but a quick glance at it told her that it was no fishing trawler, but some sort of sleek yacht. More men boiled over the side of it, leaping down to the solid ground.
How many men does the Agency have at its disposal?
Maddy was beginning to suspect it was a lot larger than many thought. Then again, it wasn’t like there was a shortage of people who hated shifters. Their supply was effectively endless, she realized. Not infinite, but more than enough to overwhelm the Underground, that was for sure.
She needed to get out of there, and soon!
First, she needed to deal with the Agents in front of her. They were between her and escape. To her left, one of the downed men moaned and began to gather himself. Maddy was no trained fighter. She might have the advantage in strength and speed, but she didn’t know what to do with it.
Footsteps pounded on asphalt in the distance as more Agents raced toward her. With every passing second they were getting closer. Maddy had no thoughts about taking them all on. She wasn’t trained for that. Connor could, but if she tried, she would probably end up dead, Extremis serum running through her blood or not.
As she backed up, Maddy tripped. Glancing down, she saw the object that had started the whole problem. A big steel bar, at least eight inches across, just strewn haphazardly across the ground. Anger surged in her as she realized that if she hadn’t tripped on that, she would have made it out of the shipyard just fine. The man closed in swiftly as she fell, but as they did, Maddy realized something.
That bar wasn’t so big to someone with enhanced muscles.
With an angry growl, she dropped to her side from her sitting position, making herself parallel with the bar, her right shoulder up against it. The men paused in their attack, as she hoped they would, trying to figure out what she was doing.
Maddy reached across her with her left hand, gripping the far side of the beam. Her right hand grabbed the near side.
“Shit!” one of the men screamed and tried to back away, but it was too late. Maddy pulled hard with her left hand, and the beam rolled up on top of her body until it was suspended in mid-air above her as she lay flat on her back.
Then she left the weight drag her back down, until she was rolling to the right. Mid-roll, she wasn’t facing straight up, nor was she lying on her side. The split angle had her facing the men head-on.
Expressionless, she flung the bar as hard as she could. The big, whirling piece of steel flew out and slammed into both men. Blood flew in the air. One of them screamed as it crushed his arm and shoulder deep into his chest. The other fell silently as the sharp edge sliced into his head, killing him instantly.
Maddy wanted to vomit, but the shouts of other men pushed a different instinct to the front.
Run!
She did, faster than she ever had before, using all of her newfound augmented strength to quicken her pace.